THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


THREE  CHRISTMAS  SERMONS 


"MY  FATHER!  MY  FATHER!  THE  CHARIOT  OF  ISRAEL 
AND  THE  HORSEMEN  THEREOF  !" 


Albertype— Boston. 


THREE  CHRISTMAS  SERMONS 


SUNDAY,    DECEMBER    25,    1881. 


BY  SONS  OF 


LEO^TAED 


WHO  FINISHED  HIS  COURSE 


DECEMBER  24. 


NEW  HAVEN: 

EDWARD    P  .    JUDD. 

1882. 


PHESS  OF  lUTTLt.  MOREHOU8E  4  TAYU>R.  MEW  HAVSM. 


IF  we  nad  limited  ourselves  to  our  original  purpose,  and 
printed  this  little  book  simply  as  a  memorial  gift  to  mem- 
bers of  our  family,  no  apology  or  explanation  would  have 
been  needed. 

Now  that  we  have  decided  to  offer  to  a  wider  circle  of 
those  who  are  bereaved  in  the  departure  of  our  father,  these 
utterances  of  "  the  comfort  wherewith  we  were  comforted  of 
God  "  on  the  sorrowful  yet  joyful  Christmas-day  just  past, 
perhaps  the  exceptional  character  and  circumstances  of  the 
book  will  still  excuse  us  from  any  long  preface. 

These  three  sermons  are  printed  as  nearly  as  may  be,  in 
the  form  in  which  they  were  preached  ;  but  the  third,  not 
having  been  originally  written,  has  had  to  be  reproduced 
from  memory. 

LEONARD  WOOLSEY  BACON, 

Park  Church,  Norwich. 

EDWARD  WOOLSEY  BACON, 

First  Church,  New  London. 

THOMAS  RUTHERFORD  BACON, 
Dwight  Place  Church,  New  Haven. 


853449 


I. 


THE  FATHERHOOD  FROM  WHICH  ALL 
FATHERHOODS  ARE  NAMED. 


Preached  to  the  Park  Church,  Norwich,  Connecticut, 

BY 

LEONARD  WOOLSEY  BACON, 

PASTOR. 


THE  FATHERHOOD  FROM  WHICH  ALL 
FATHERHOODS  ARE  NAMED. 


EPHESIANS,  iii,  14.    ...    THE  FATHER  FROM  WHOM 

EVERY  FAMILY  [GR.  FATHERHOOD]  IN  HEAVEN  AND  EARTH 
IS  NAMED. 

We  need  not  grieve  to  miss,  in  the  corrected 
translation  of  this  text,  the  cherished  phrase, 
"Father  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ"  There  is  no 
doubt  what  the  meaning  is;  and  if  these  very 
syllables  are  not  in%  the  writing  of  Paul  the 
Apostle  himself,  it  is  hardly  less  interesting  and 
valuable  to  us  to  recognize  in  them  the  annota- 
tion of  some  of  the  earliest  generations  of  those 
who  believed  through  his  word.  In  the  next 
clause,  if  we  seem  to  lose  something  in  the 
absence  of  that  phrase,  "the  whole  family  in 
heaven  and  earth,"  we  gain  more  than  we  lose ; 
for  that  which  is  named  of  God's  fatherhood  we 
find  to  be  more  even  than  the  great  fellowship  of 
holy  souls,  the  church  in  earth  and  heaven, — it 
includes  all  the  families,  lineages,  fatherhoods  (it 


10 

is  a  little  difficult  to  find  the  exactly  equivalent 
word)  on  earth,  and  whatever  of  the  like  may  be 
carried  over  by  us  into  the  eternal  life,  or  may 
subsist  among  the  angels  of  God. 

We  cannot  find  it  in  our  hearts  to  approach 
the  words  that  speak  to  us  of  this  holy  mystery 
otherwise  than  with  a  most  reverent  and  for- 
bearing awe.  Even  if  the  vail  of  the  temple  is 
rent  in  twain,  it  is  not  for  us  to  rush  with  auda- 
cious curiosity  to  gaze  into  "the  holiest  place  of 
all."  And  when  there  comes  near  to  us  a  mes- 
senger who  has  been  privileged  to  see  visions  of 
things  in  heaven,  and  to  hear  words  which  it 
were  not  lawful  for  man  to  utter,  and  brings  to 
us  some  word  of  knowledge  that  it  hath  well 
pleased  the  eternal  One  to  make  known  to  us,  it 
is  not  for  us  inquisitively  to  cross-question  him 
as  if  to  extort  from  him  more  than  it  was  given 
him  to  tell ;  but  rather,  with  a  reverential  thank- 
fulness, to  receive  the  message  in  simplicity,  con- 
tent to  know  in  part  and  prophesy  in  part,  until 
that  which  is  perfect  be  come,  and  the  things  that 
are  in  part  shall  be  done  away. 

I  do  not  need  to  tell  you  how  far  the  church  of 
Christ  has  seemed  to  come  short  of  this  grace  of 


modesty  and  teachableness;  how  prone  we  have 
been  to  seize  upon  the  word  of  the  Lord  as  if  it 
were  only  meant  as  a  clue  for  our  own  specula- 
tive explorations  into  things  unseen  ;  or  worse 
than  this,  as  if  the  main  use  of  it  were  to  fortify 
us  in  our  personal  or  partisan  theories,  and  to 
furnish  us  weapons  of  offense  against  our  fel- 
low-Christians. Here  in  this  text  we  have  some- 
what told  us  concerning  fatherhood  and  sonship, 
such  as  might  well  have  drawn  all  Christian 
hearts — all  human  hearts — together  in  brotherly 
love;  but  being  received  in  the  spirit  of  pride — 
pride  of  intellect,  pride  of  sect — has  been  per- 
verted into  the  occasion  of  whole  libraries  of 
barren  speculation  on  questions  known  to  no 
human  mind,  to  fifteen  centuries  of  acrimonious 
debate,  and  to  the  first  great  schism  that  tore  the 
youthful  church  into  two  bleeding  fragments. 

It  will  help  us  to  a  better  way  of  dealing  with 
these  cherished  words,  if  we  bear  in  mind  that 
they  contain  a  revelation — that  they  tell  us  some- 
thing concerning  the  infinite  and  eternal  God 
that  we  did  not  know  and  could  not  know  of 
ourselves;  something  which  might  perhaps  have 
been  conjectured,  doubtfully,  but  in  which  our 


12 

conjectures  were  not  unlikely  to  go  amiss.  And 
so,  in  fact,  we  find,  as  soon  as  we  begin  to  read 
the  words  with  simplicity,  that  our  conjectures 
had  really  inverted  the  order  of  the  truth  and 
put  that  first  which  is  last.  All  earthly  father- 
hoods are  named  from  the  Fatherhood  of  God. 
Have  we  not  been  in  the  habit  of  thinking,  you 
.and  I,  that  it  was  just  the  other  way — that  our 
Father  who  is  in  heaven  was  so  called  from  a 
•certain  analogy  with  our  fathers  who  are  in 
•earth — that  the  earthly  fatherhoods  are  the  re- 
ality, and  the  divine  Fatherhood  a  figure  of 
speech? — that  this  calling  of  God  "  Our  Father," 
arises  out  of  our  habit  of  thinking,  by  which  we 
impute  to  him  the  acts  and  qualities  of  a  human 
parent  ? — that  there  is  no  real  Fatherhood  in 
God,  independently  of  our  habits  of  conceiving 
and  expressing  ?  Is  not  this  something  like 
what  has  been  in  your  thoughts  and  mine  ? 

And  now,  as  if  to  show  how  high,  like  the 
heaven  above  the  earth,  are  God's  thoughts 
above  our  thoughts,  we  have  this  revelation  of 
an  eternal  reality.  We  learn  that  this  Father- 
hood of  God  is  something  more  than  a  mode  of 
our  thinking,  derived  from  our  study  of  earthly 


things,  varying  with  human  moods,  vanishing  in 
human  darkness  or  unbelief.  It  is  something  as 
real,  as  eternal,  as  God  himself.  It  is  in  him, 
not  in  us.  You  may  tell  me  that  the  word  is 
of  recent  use — that  the  elder  world  had  not 
learned  to  say  Our  Father,  but  only  Our  King, 
and  that  this  gentler  word  came  in  in  gentler 
days,  the  days  of  the  gospel ;  and  what  you  thus 
say  will  be  partly  true  and  partly  false;  but  false 
or  true,  it  does  not  affect  the  everlasting  truth  of 
God's  Fatherhood.  That  is  "  forever  settled  in 
the  heavens,"  even  though  all  the  earth  were 
blind  to  it.  Even  if  men  to-day  could  unlearn 
the  dear  lesson  Christ  has  taught  us;  and  wholly 
stifle  that  inward  whisper  that  prompts  to  say 
Abba,  Father;  and  if  the  little  children  of  the 
age  to  come  could  grow  up  in  terror  of  God,  not 
knowing,  or  not  daring,  to  say  "Our  Father  who 
art  in  heaven;"  and  the  nations  having  lost  their 
light  should  begin  to  say  of  God,  what  some 
seem  trying  so  persistently  to  teach  themselves 
to  say,  "he  is  a  cruel  Destiny — he  is  an  unpity- 
ing,  unrelenting  system  of  natural  laws — he  is 
a  passionless  nucleus  of  abstract  infinitudes" — 
this  could  not  change  the  everlasting  truth.  The 


14 

fatherly  heart  of  God,  which  pitieth  us  as  a 
father  pitieth  his  children,  would  go  beating  on, 
and  measuring  with  its  great  pulsations  of  love 
the  eternity  to  come,  like  as  it  has  the  eternity  of 
old,  in  the  beginning  or  ever  the  earth  was. 
This  is  the  teaching  of  the  text — that,  perhaps, 
which  the  theologians  of  the  early  church  meant 
to  set  forth  in  the  ancient  creeds  under  the 
phrase  "the  eternal  generation" — that  God  was 
always  the  Father,  that  his  paternity  is  that 
which  "was  in  the  beginning,  is  now,  and  ever 
shall  be,  world  without  end;"  and  that  it  is  after 
this  eternal  type  of  fatherhood  subsisting  in  God 
before  all  worlds,  that  every  family — all  father- 
hood— in  heaven  and  earth  is  constituted  and 
named.  O  parents,  who,  as  the  year  ripens  to 
the  Christmas-tide,  love  to  give  good  gifts  to 
your  children,  are  happy  at  the  thought  of  their 
coming  gladness,  and  glow  with  a  pure  delight 
at  the  response  of  their  loving  gratitude,  know 
that  this  fairest,  most  unselfish  thing  in  human 
nature  is  in  you  because  it  was  first  in  God;  a 
lineament,  not  yet  destroyed,  of  that  fair  image 
of  himself  in  which  he  created  man.  It  is  even 
thus,  as  ye  love  to  give  good  gifts  to  your 


children,  that  he  "loveth  to  give  the  Holy  Spirit 
to  them  that  ask  him." 

And  this  eternal  and  infinite  fact  it  is,  of  the 
Fatherhood  of  God,  in  its  highest  manifestation 
toward  Jesus  Christ  the  Son,  that  is  drawing  the 
special  thoughts  of  the  church  in  every  land  at 
this  Christmas  season.  Its  highest  manifesta- 
tion, I  say,  not  its  only  one.  There  be  many 
sons  of  God;  for  he,  the  Former  of  our  bodies, 
is  the  Father  of  our  spirits.  Even  the  heathen 
poet  sang,  "for  we  are  also  his  offspring;"  and 
the  apostle  to  the  heathen  caught  from  those 
Gentile  lips  the  word,  and  sent  it  back  to  his 
pagan  hearers  stamped  with  a  divine  endorse- 
ment— "  Forasmuch,  then,  as  ye  are  the  offspring 
of  God."  The  apostasy  of  the  human  race  from 
God  has  net  sufficed  to  rupture  the  bonds  that 
hold  them  members  of  his  family.  He  grieves 
over  them  in  their  far-off  absence,  saying,  "  How 
can  I  give  you  up?"  And  if  they  will  but  arise 
and  go  to  him,  he  meets  them  a  great  way  off, 
and  kisses  them,  and  rejoices  more  over  the 
wanderer  returned  than  over  him  that  was  ever 
with  him.  O,  sinful  man,  conscious  of  persist- 
ent sin,  God  is  your  Father  and  he  loves  you. 


j6 

And  in  spite  of  all  you  are,  you  are  his  children, 
yet  you  love  him  not. 

But  there  is  a  higher  sense,  in  which  this  ex- 
pression of  God's  Fatherhood  is  used  in  special 
relation  to  good  men — men  who  mean  to  do  good 
and  try  to  do  good  from  day  to  day — men  who 
trust  in  God — believers — who  serve  God — who 
love  God.  These  are  his  sons.  They  have  re- 
ceived power  —  privilege  —  the  right  —  to  become 
sons  of  God.  They  are  doubly  his — toy  nature 
and  by  patent,  of  adoption.  The  family  like- 
ness comes  out  in  them.  They  share  the  family 
aims  and  counsels,  and  their  Father's  will  is 
their  will.  They  do  not  serve  by  constraint, 
but  by  love.  There  is  only  one  interest  in 
the  family,  for  the  Father's  kingdom  and  estate 
is  theirs,  and  what  is  done  for  him  is  done 
for  themselves.  The  family  instinct  is  strong 
within  them,  and  grows  stronger  every  day. 
There  is  that  in  their  hearts  that  moves  them 
to  say  Father — Abba,  Father.  It  is  the  adopt- 
ing Spirit,  and  by  this  it  is  that  they  know 
that  they  are  sons  of  God,  and  if  children  then 
heirs — heirs  of  God  and  joint  heirs  with  Jesus 
Christ.  There  is  something  of  the  just  family 


pride  that  belongs  to  them,  too.  A  right  noble 
name  is  this  which  they  bear  about  in  the 
world,  that  they  should  be  called  sons  of  God. 
And  the  thought  of  it  lifts  up  their  souls  above 
the  power  of  mean  temptations,  and  makes 
lowly  and  humble  ones  to  be  kings  and  priests 
like  their  royal  Father.  Do  not,  O  believers, 
shrink  from  the  wearing  of  that  magnificent 
title  which  he  hath  with  his  own  hand  conferred 
upon  you.  Beloved,  now  are  you  a  son  of  God. 
And  it  doth  not  yet  appear  what  you  shall  be. 
This  only  we  know — these  distortions  and  mar- 
rings  of  your  Father's  likeness  in  you  that  make 
you  seem  to  others,  and  to  yourself  sometimes, 
a  sort  of  caricature  of  the  family  likeness,  will 
fade  out  as  you  know  your  Father  better,  and 
by  and  by  they  will  wholly  disappear,  and  you 
shall  be  like  him  when  you  see  him  as  he  is. 

But  even  this  is  not  God's  highest  Fatherhood. 
There  is  an  eternal  love  which  is  the  type  after 
which  not  only  all  loving  relationships  of  earth 
are  fashioned,  but  whatever  in  heavenly  worlds 
there  may  be  of  like  links  and  chains  of  per- 
sonal affection.  And  to  know  something  of  this 
deep  wonder  of  love  in  the  heart  of  God,  we 


i8 

turn  to-day  to  contemplate  the  manger  in  which 
there  lies  a  little  speechless  infant  wrapped  in 
swaddling  clothes,  concerning  whom,  among  all 
the  sons  of  God,  it  is  testified  from  heaven  that 
he  is  the  Son  of  God ;  and  among  those  who  are 
begotten  of  God  to  a  living  hope,  that  he  is  the 
anly  begotten  of  the  Father;  and  among  us  who 
have  such  abounding  tokens  of  God's  infinite 
fatherly  love  toward  us,  it  is  declared  (as  if  there 
were  no  other)  that  he  is  "God's  dear  Son," 
his  "well  beloved  Son,  in  whom  he  is  well 
pleased." 

What  great  deeps  of  mystery  are  touched  and 
bordered  by  these  words,  I  do  not  know.  They 
know  least  in  such  a  matter  who  are  sure  they 
know  it  all — that  they  have  "found  out  the 
Almighty  to  perfection ;"  and  they  are  wisest 
who  are  most  deeply  conscious  how  much  there 
is  they  cannot  understand.  I  study  to  content 
myself  with  a  very  little  knowledge  that  is  much 
like  not  knowing;  and  to  be  well  assured  that 
what  I  do  know,  I  know.  Out  of  all  the  vari- 
ances of  good  men  in  the  study  of  the  Scriptures, 
the  very  least  that  we  can  claim  as  settled  be- 
yond all  dispute  is  this,  that  Jesus  Christ  is  Son 


of  God  in  a  unique  sense  of  the  word,  such  as 
does  not  suffer  us  to  class  him  as  one  of  the 
sons  of  God.  He,  the  Son,  reveals  the  Father; 
"neither  knoweth  any  man  the  Father,  save  the 
Son,  and  he  to  whom  the  Son  will  reveal  him." 
How  can  one  know  the  Fatherhood  but  by 
knowing  the  Sonship? 

We,  then,  longing  to  know  more  of  the  Father 
from  whom  we  have  wandered  and  lost  ourselves, 
turn  this  day  to  look  towards  the  manger  where 
the  young  child  lies.  The  heaven  seems  to  bend 
over  him  with  joy  and  greeting.  A  loving  Prov- 
idence protects  him.  The  grace  of  God  is  upon 
him.  He  delights  to  do  God's  will,  and  wonders 
that  they  do  not  understand  that  he  must  be  at 
his  Father's  house  and  about  his  Father's  busi- 
ness. As  he  grows  older,  he  "grows  in  favor 
with  God."  And  when  at  last,  come  to  man- 
hood, he  longs  to  fulfil  all  righteousness  and 
draws  near  to  John  to  be  baptized,  the  voice  of 
God  declares,  "This  is  my  beloved  Son,  in  whom 
I  am  well  pleased."  He  lives  on  every  word 
proceeding  from  the  mouth  of  God,  esteeming 
it  more  than  necessary  food.  And  after  long 
days  of  toil,  sleep  is  not  so  sweet  to  him  as  to 


20 

spend  the  night  alone  on  the  mountain-top  with 
the  Father.  And  when  the  Father  seems  to  have 
left  him  alone  in  his  last  distress,  it  breaks  his 
heart;  he  cries  out,  "My  God,  my  God,  why 
hast  thou  forsaken  me?"  and  dies.  But  the  eter- 

• 

nal  answering  love,  that  must  needs  be  hidden 
from  the  dying  Son,  was  there.  The  clouds  and 
darkness  that  are  round  about  the  throne  of  God 
part  here  and  there  a  moment,  and  through  the 
rifts  we  get  a  strange,  awful  glimpse  as  if  of 
anguish  on  the  face  of  God  blessed  forever.  It 
is  the  demonstration  how  great  was  his  love  for 
us,  that  he  spared  not  his  own  Son  from  agony 
and  death,  but  delivered  him  up  for  us  all.  He 
was  so  well  beloved  a  Son ;  in  him  the  Father 
was  so  well  pleased,  that  the  love  which  spared 
him  not  must  have  been  love  indeed ! 

If  we  wholly  knew  the  heart  of  God,  we 
should,  in  the  light  of  this  text,  have  great 
advantage  in  understanding  these  earthly  father- 
hoods that  are  "named  therefrom."  If  we  knew 
familiarly  the  imperial  features  of  Alexander  the 
Great,  how  easily  we  could  judge  of  his  likeness 
on  any  coin  of  his  reign !  But  now  we  have  to 
judge  the  emperor  from  the  coin,  not  the  coin 


21 

from  the  emperor.  The  best  we  can  do  is  to  sort 
over  the  shining  hoard  of  the  antiquary,  and  cull 
the  best  impressions,  the  least  worn  and  defaced 
with  the  sordid  uses  of  the  world,  and  judge  the 
original  by  comparing  these  among  themselves. 
We  are  not  in  a  position  to  reason  downward 
from  God  to  men ;  we  must  reason  upward 
from  the  things  which  are  seen  to  that  which  is 
unseen  ;  we  must  know  the  original  type  by  col- 
lating the  least  imperfect  copies. 

If  it  has  been  given  to  you  to  know  through 
all  your  years  of  life  an  example  of  long-sus- 
tained unwavering  fatherly  affection  that  was 
made  up  of  inseparable  love  and  righteousness, 
an  example  in  which  the  noblest  elements  in 
human  nature,  still  more  ennobled  by  the  grace 
of  God,  came  most  manifestly  near  to  the  divine 
likeness,  in  which  shone  out  upon  you,  as  stead- 
fast as  "the  patient  stars,"  an  undiscourageable 
hopefulness  that  resolutely  would  foresee  in  you 
a  better  end  beneath  all  unpromising  traits  of 
character,  an  infinite,  surprising  patience  with 
immaturities  and  weaknesses  and  the  faults  of  a 
less  magnanimous  nature  than  his  own,  a  simple- 
minded  forgetfulness  of  his  own  great  deeds  in 


his  affectionate  delight  in  any  worthy  act  well 
done  on  the  part  of  any  of  his  children,  as  if  he 
loved  to  look  down  from  the  unconscious  height 
of  his  great  fame  and  say,  "  this  is  my  beloved 
son  in  whom  I  am  well  pleased," — then  you  can 
not  be  far  amiss  in  saying,  Herein  I  see  some- 
thing of  what  that  fatherly  heart  of  God  must  be 
from  whom  all  earthly  fatherhoods  are  fashioned 
and  named. 

If  it  has  been  given  you  to  see  the  bravest 
heart  you  ever  knew — so  unselfish,  so  heroic, 
whom  no  personal  danger  could  make  afraid, 
from  whose  firm  lips  no  extremity  of  anguish  of 
his  own  could  extort  one  complaint,  groaning  in 
spirit  as  he  said,  "there  is  no  sorrow  in  life  like 
the  sorrow  of  losing  a  grown-up  son,"  bowing 
with  unutterable  tenderness  in  the  agony  of  part- 
ing with  the  fairest,  noblest,  saintliest  of  his  sons, 
yet  singing  with  a  loud  voice  of  triumph  beside 
his  grave, — you  would  be  tempted  to  say  to  your- 
self, I  cannot  understand  the  mystery  of  godli- 
ness, into  which  the  angels  desire  to  gaze,  how 
God  spared  not  his  own  Son  but  freely  gave  him 
up  for  us  all,  and  yet  gave  him  as  the  last  proof 
of  love,  and  as  if  there  had  been  some  divine 


23 

anguish  in  the  sacrifice — I  cannot  understand 
it ;  but  this  fatherhood  on  earth  which  is  named 
of  God  the  Father  is  given  me  that  I  might  learn 
God  therefrom ;  and  even  now  in  part  I  see,  and 
in  part  I  prophesy."  And  if  you  should  be 
tempted  thus  to  speak,  you  could  not  be  very 
greatly  wrong. 

And  if  the  glow  of  a  true  answering  love  and 
gratitude  has  ever  burned  within  your  heart ;  if, 
waking  from  the  unconsciousness  of  childhood 
that  took  all  daily  helps  and  comforts  as  a  mat- 
ter of  course,  you  have  come  to  know  what  long, 
unselfish  toil  and  care  they  stood  for;  if  you 
have  learned  to  trace  the  very  thoughts  of  your 
mind  to  the  quickening  suggestions  of  his  great 
intellect,  your  worthiest  plans  and  achievements 
to  the  germs  of  his  planting;  if  you  have  been 
wont  to  count  that  the  best  hours  of  your  life 
were  those  spent  in  his  companionship,  and  that 
his  approval  and  good  pleasure  were  your  best 
reward  for  good  work  well  done,  and  your 
strong  incentive  for  working  on  to  make  the 
world  happier  and  better  even  as  "your  father 
worketh  hitherto;"  then  you  may  take  these  holy 
thoughts  and  experiences  with  you  to  the  sacred 


24 

pages  of  the  New  Testament  of  our  Lord  and 
Savjour  Jesus  Christ,  feeling  that  you  have 
learned  the  elements  of  that  human  language  in 
which  the  book  is  written ;  that  the  mystery  of 
godliness,  without  controversy  great,  is  not  all  a 
mystery;  that  you  have  come  in  some  wise  to 
know  the  Son  from  whom  all  filiations  in  heaven 
and  earth  are  named;  and  that  when  "Jesus 
lifteth  up  his  eyes  to  heaven  and  saith,  Father," 
and  when  the  voice  from  heaven  answers,  "  My 
beloved  Son,"  you  are  not  wholly  a  stranger  in 
the  family. 

You  have  heard,  my  dear  friends,  that  only  a 
few  hours  ago  my  dear  and  honored  father, 
known,  loved,  praised  in  the  gospel  throughout 
all  the  churches,  ceased  suddenly  from  his  blessed 
labors,  and  entered  into  his  blessed  rest.  You 
will  not  wonder  or  complain  that,  this  happy 
Lord's  day,  when  "  the  voice  of  rejoicing  and 
salvation  is  in  the  dwellings  of  the  righteous," 
my  thoughts  should  turn  from  the  story  of  the 
young  child  wrapped  in  swaddling-clothes  and 
lying  in  a  manger,  to  the  dear  old  man  wrapped 
in  his  grave-clothes  and  resting  sweetly  on  his 
bier,  and  should  find  in  this  lesson  of  my  father's 


25 

holy  life  and  death  some  light  on  the  eternal 
Fatherhood  of  Him  who  is  the  God  and  Father 
of  our  Lord"  Jesus  Christ,  and  our  Father,  and 
our  God. 


II. 

GOD    NEVER    OLD. 


Preached  to  the  First  Church  of  Christ  in   New  London, 
Connecticut, 

BY 

EDWARD  WOOLSEY  BACON, 

PASTOR. 


GOD  NEVER  OLD. 


LUKE  n,  40. — AND  THE  CHILD  GREW  AND  WAXED  STRONG, 

FILLED    WITH  WISDOM :  AND    THE  GRACE  OF  GOD   WAS   UPON 
HIM. 

Not  least  among  the  attractions  of  our  blessed 
faith  is  the  youthfulness  in  which  it  has  pleased 
God  to  express  his  revelation.  The  incarnation 
of  God  comes  to  us  as  an  infant;  and,  if  the 
years  grow  old  and  roll  away  into  the  past,  if  life 
grows  weary  and  passes  out  of  youth,  if  death 
invades  the  earthly  home  and  breaks  it  up  and 
its  associations  hurry  toward  oblivion, — however 
we  are  reminded  of  decay,  the  star  of  Bethlehem 
invites  us  to  rejoice  in  a  God  ever  living,  who 
delights  in  youth  and  chooses  to  become  mani- 
fest to  the  world  through  infancy.  His  is  "the 
power  of  an  endless  life,"  and,  when  we  remem- 
ber his  advent  in  human  form,  we  do  well  to 
gather  around  us  these  symbols  from  the  forest, 
that  grow  richer  the  colder  the  climate  and  the 


3° 

deeper  the  snow,  and  are  green  as  long  as  they 
live. 

Perhaps  such  thought  of  God  is  hardly  natu- 
ral ;  but  it  is  just.  He  never  grows  old,  and  the 
Scriptures  are  careful  to  teach  us  his  perennial 
vigor.  "  From  everlasting  to  everlasting  he  is 
God;"  but  "a  thousand  years  are  with  him  as 
one  day." 

Think  of  it : 

Hast  thou  not  known  ?     Hast  thou  not  heard 

That  the  everlasting  God,  the  Lord, 

The  Creator  of  the  ends  of  the  earth, 

Fainteth  not,  neither  is  weary  ? 

There  is  no  searching  of  his  understanding. 

He  giveth  power  to  the  faint ; 

And  to  them  that  have  no  might  he  increaseth  strength. 

Even  the  youths  shall  faint  and  be  weary, 

And  the  young  men  shall  utterly  fail  : 

But  they  that  wait  upon  the  Lord  shall  renew 

their  strength  : 

They  shall  mount  up  with  wings  as  eagles  : 
They  shall  run  and  not  be  weary  ; 
They  shall  walk  and  not  faint. 

That  is  the  Scriptural  idea  of  God  always,  and 
especially  in  those  prophecies  that  are  most  full 
of  anticipation  of  the  manifestation  of  God's 


glory  in  the  face  of  Jesus  Christ.  And  not  the 
least  that  we  learn  from  Christ  is  this  revelation 
of  the  youthfulness  of  God.  When  we  would 
see  God,  we  are  taken  first  of  all,  not  to  the 
Temple,  not  to  the  Rabbis,  not  to  the  worker  of 
miracles,  but  to  Bethlehem,  to  the  manger;  and 
this  is  the  sign  to  us  :  "  we  find  a  babe,  wrapped 
in  swaddling  clothes,  and  lying  in  a  manger." 

The  same  demonstration  of  what  (for  want  of 
easier  phrase)  I  must  poorly  call  the  youthful- 
ness  of  God,  is  taught  to  the  very  end  of  Christ's 
ministry.  He  did  not  remain  an  infant,  although 
he  appeared  in  the  freshness  of  infancy.  Of 
course  the  child  grew  and  waxed  strong.  Natu- 
rally he  became  filled  with  wisdom,  and  the 
spirit  of  God  was  upon  him.  But  he  did  not 
grow  old ;  he  grew  only  to  the  prime  of  life ;  he 
was  young  at  his  death ;  he  was  but  thirty-three 
years  old.  Have  you  ever  observed  how  full  of 
young  life  the  gospels  are  ?  The  aged  Zacharias, 
the  aged  Simeon,  the  aged  Anna,  are  at  the 
beginning;  but  they  salute  the  blessed  infancy 
and  "depart  in  peace,  having  seen  the  salvation 
of  God."  And  after  these  early  chapters  of 
Luke,  where  do  you  read  of  old  age  again,  except 


32 

in  the  subjects  of  Jesus'  healing  who,  waiting 
upon  him,  renewed  their  strength  ?  If  we  turn 
far  over  into  the  Epistles,  we  come  into  contact 
with  men  old  enough ;  with  "  such  an  one  as  Paul 
the  aged,"  now  "ready  to  be  offered,  the  time  of 
whose  departure  is  at  hand;"  and  read  the  sad- 
dening expressions  of  Peter,  as  he  says  with  the 
solemnity  of  age,  "  I  think  it  right,  as  long  as  I 
am  in  this  tabernacle,  to  stir  you  up  by  putting 
you  in  remembrance ;  knowing  that  the  putting 
off  of  my  tabernacle  cometh  swiftly ;  .  .  .  .  that 
you  may  be  able,  after  my  decease,  to  call  these 
things  to  remembrance." 

But  turn  back  to  the  Gospels  and  you  are 
again  in  quite  a  different  company.  There  is  no 
feebleness  here;  these  are  no  old  man's  halting 
counsels  that  we  read  from  His  lips  "  who  spake 
as  never  man  spake."  He  gathered  young  men 
about  him  and  made  them  his  apostles ;  and  the 
story  of  his  teaching,  his  athletic  itineracy,  his 
endurance — continuing  all  night  in  prayer, — his 
longing  for  a  home  which  he  could  not  have, 
his  fondness  for  little  children,  his  love  for  the 
rich  young  man,  his  zealous  purification  of  the 
Temple,  his  very  appearance,  which  caused  his 


33 

opponents  to  allege  his  youth  against  his  wis- 
dom ; — all  these  and  many  other  features  of  the 
gospels  create  for  us,  as  we  read,  a  very  atmos- 
phere of  young  maturity  that  is  no  small  element 
of  the  power  of  their  story. 

Nor  does  their  youthful  character  make  the 
gospels  only  helpful  to  the  young;  it,  rather, 
heightens  their  attractiveness  to  the  aged  and  in- 
firm. For  a  healthful  and  good  old  age  is  ever 
green  in  spirit  and  loves  to  refresh  itself  by 
intercourse  with  youthful  vigor.  It  is  a  mis- 
taken kindness  which  undertakes  to  "get  the 
old  people  together,"  thinking  to  make  them 
enjoy  themselves;  the  greatest  satisfaction  that 
age  can  have  is  in  the  society  of  the  young  and 
strong.  The  gospels  are,  primarily,  books  for 
the  young;  but,  by  that  very  fact,  they  are  books 
for  the  aged  too. 

I  have  put  the  Epistles  as  expressing  age, 
in  contrast  with  the  gospels,  that  tell  the  story 
of  the  life  of  Jesus.  But,  whenever  the  Epis- 
tles refer  to  Christ,  it  is  always  with  this  de- 
cided impression  of  his  youth.  Down  to  their 
latest  day,  he  remained,  to  the  companions  of 
his  ministry,  the  same  young  man  that  he  was 


34 

in  Capernaum,  in  Pilate's  judgment-hall,  at  Cal- 
vary and  on  the  Mount  of  Olives,  when  "  he  was 
parted  from  them  and  a  cloud  received  him  out 
of  their  sight."  I  do  not  mean  that  their  Lord 
became  no  more  to  them  than  a  memory  of 
youthful  intimacy :  I  could  not  say  that.  They 
have  much  to  declare  of  his  exaltation,  his 
glory,  his  majesty;  but  there  is  no  change  in 
the  impression  of  his  youth;  it  is  eternal;  it  has 
"the  power  of  an  endless  life."  Even  the  phrase 
"  our  elder  brother,"  by  which  we  so  often  de- 
scribe Christ,  is  not  a  scriptural  expression. 
He  is  our  brother  and  "  made  like  unto  his 
brethren  in  all  things;" — it  is  most  natural  for 
us  to  call  him  "elder  brother;"  but,  his  vigor- 
ous youth  was  so  indelibly  stamped  upon  their 
minds,  the  apostles  never  speak  of  him  as  older 
than  themselves  were  in  their  youth ; — much  less 
do  they  describe  him  as  "  old."  Even  Paul,  who 
never  saw  Jesus  in  the  flesh,  but  to  whom  he 
became  manifest  in  a  vision,  partakes  of  this 
same  unconscious  recognition  of  his  Lord  as 
young.  And  when  we  reach  the  very  end,  in  the 
vision  of  the  Revelation,  what  is  the  imagery  of 
the  poem  when  it  tells  of  the  consummation  of 


35 

Christ's  glory  and  his  final  triumph  in  his  king- 
dom, but  of  the  church  as  the  young  bride, 
adorned  for  her  youthful  husband? 

It  was,  then,  not  without  purpose  that,  "  when 
the  fulness  of  time  came,  God  sent  forth  his  Son, 
born  of  a  virgin."  It  was  that  when  we  would 
see  God  we  should  return  from  weariness  and 
from  sin  as  if  renewing  our  life,  as  if  becoming 
pure  in  heart,  and  behold  him  first  of  all  in  a 
Babe,  wrapped  in  swaddling  clothes  and  lying 
in  a  manger ! 

It  was  not  without  purpose  that  "  the  child 
grew  and  waxed  strong,  filled  with  wisdom  ;  and 
that  the  grace  of  God  was  upon  him."  It  was 
that  we,  drawing  near  to  him  and  becoming  as 
babes  in  Christ,  might  grow  in  mind  and  spirit, 
as  he  grew  in  favor  with  God  and  men. 

And  it  was  not  without  purpose  that,  in  the 
prime  of  life,  at  the  very  opening  of  manhood, 

"  He  was  taken  from  prison  and  from  judgment : 
And  who  shall  declare  his  generation  ? 
For  he  was  cut  off  out  of  the  land  of  the  living  !" 

It  was  that  he  should  stand  before  men  for- 
ever the  exponent  of  the  youthfulness  of  "the 


36 

everlasting    God,    who   fainteth    not,    neither   is 
weary." 

When  he  came  to  earth  it  was  in  the  exquisite 
simplicity  of  infancy ;  that  henceforth  every 
cradle  might  speak  of  God  to  us;  and  when  he 
rose  from  the  grave,  because  he  could  not  be 
holden  of  death,  and  ascended  upon  high,  it  was 
in  the  likeness  of  perfect  manhood,  at  its  young 
maturity,  that  we  might  think  of  him  as  young 
forever ;  and  of  God  as  imaged  by  him ;  and  of 
those  who  are  with  him  where  he  is,  as  touch- 
ing the  hem  of  his  garment,  healed  of  their  in- 
firmities, restored  to  a  perennial  youth.  Time 
drew  no  lines  upon  his  brow,  nor  were  his 
shoulders  bent  by  weight  of  years ;  and  they  that 
sleep  in  him  shall  God  bring  with  him,  the 
wrinkles  smoothed  away  and  the  outward  form, 
no  longer  a  temporary  tabernacle,  but  an  eternal 
house, — made  as  youthful  as  the  cheerful  spirit 
that  waited  upon  him,  as  youthful  as  he  is!  No 
one  can  be  in  sympathy  with  Christ  and  not 
become  like  Him;  and  he  who  "humbled  him- 
self to  be  born  of  a  virgin,"  and  who  as  a  child 
<4  grew  and  waxed  strong  and  became  filled  with 
wisdom,"  never  grew  old,  even  in  the  powers  of 


37 

the  body;  he  is  young  forever.  He  manifests  in 
the  flesh,  "  The  everlasting  God,  that  fainteth 
not,  neither  is  weary." 

This  is  one  of  the  lessons  that  grow  out  of  the 
remembrance  of  how  "  Jesus  was  born  in  Beth- 
lehem of  Judea  in  the  days  of  Herod  the  king," 
and  of  how  "the  child  grew  and  waxed  strong." 
In  how  many  villages,  in  how  many  homes,  are 
those  common  chronicles  made  :  "  She  brought 
forth  her  first  born  son  " — "  The  child  grew  and 
waxed  strong."  In  how  many  homes  is  the 
chronicle  added  of  pining  sickness,  feeble  matu- 
rity, trembling  old  age,  or  sudden  death  !  Thus 
has  it  been,  thus  it  is  to-day  to  some  of  us.  It 
is  a  merry  day;  but  not  where  Christmas  letters 
lie  unopened  or  where  Christmas  gifts  are  held 
unsent.  And  yet  it  should  be  a  glad  day  even  in 
such  homes ;  and  it  is,  in  some  such  homes  by 
these  tokens  of  which  I  have  reminded  you  so 
feebly.  O  that  wherever  there  is  sorrow,  wher- 
ever there  is  foreboding,  wherever  the  end  of 
the  months  seems  sad,  and  the  indications  of 
decay  stand  out, 

"  Before  the  music  of  the  year 
Its  varied  notes  shall  cease, 


33 

May  Christmas  raise  a  melody 

Of  happiness  and  peace. 
And  when  the  solemn  final  chord 

Has  died  upon  the  ear, 
May  strains  of  gladness,  full  and  free, 

Awake  the  coming  year!" 

To  one  who  understands  what  the  birth  of 
Jesus  is,  or  what  is  the  meaning  of  the  Star  of 
Bethlehem,  the  joy  of  this  day  is  different  from 
any  other  gladness,  and  so  profound  that  no 
shock  of  earth  can  ruffle  it ;  else  why  should  I, — 
how  could  I  be  preaching  to  you  to-day? 

I  pray  God  you  may  take  the  birth  of  Jesus  in 
its  true  significance ! 

Its  significance  is  this,  to  young  and  old  :  "  Be- 
loved, now  are  we  children  of  God,  and  it  is  not 
yet  made  manifest  what  we  shall  be.  But  we 
know  that  when  he  shall  be  manifested,  we  shall 
be  like  him ;  for  we  shall  see  him,  even  as 
he  is!" 


III. 

EMMANUEL— GOD  WITH  US. 


Preached  to  the  Dwight  Place  Church,  New  Haven, 
Connecticut, 

BY 
THOMAS  RUTHERFORD  BACON, 

PASTOR. 


EMMANUEL— GOD  WITH  US. 


MAT.  i,  23. — AND  THEY  SHALL  CALL  HIS  NAME  EMMAN- 
UEL, WHICH  BEING  INTERPRETED  IS,  GOD  WITH  US. 

This  is  the  day  upon  which  the  Christian  world 
has  declaredly  or  tacitly  agreed  to  commemorate 
a  great  historical  event.  We  need  not  now  enter 
upon  a  discussion  of  the  reasons  which  led  to  the 
setting  apart  of  this  particular  day  for  this  pur- 
pose. The  fact  is,  for  our  present  use,  sufficient, 
that  to-day  men  everywhere  remember  with  joy 
that  Jesus  was  born  in  Bethlehem  of  Judea.  We 
keep  the  feast  with  gladness,  with  praise  to  God 
on  our  lips  and  in  our  hearts,  with  the  inter- 
change of  tokens  of  sweet  domestic  and  friendly 
affection,  with  remembrance  of  the  poor,  whom 
we  have  always  with  us,  with  every  effort  to  make 
the  earth  brighter  with  the  love  of  man  and  the 
glory  of  God.  And  this  is  fitting,  for  we  cele- 
brate thus  the  day  which  brought  glory  to  God 
in  the  highest,  and  peace  on  earth,  good  will  to 
men.  For  then  God  was  found  in  the  likeness 

4 


42 

of  men,  that  men  might  be  found  in  the  likeness 
of  God  ;  the  divine  was  made  human  to  teach  us 
how  the  human  might  be  made  divine ;  the  Son 
of  God  became  the  son  of  man,  that  we  the  deso- 
late children  of  men  might  be  given  power  to 
become  the  sons  of  God ;  God  was  manifest 
in  the  flesh  that  man  might  be  manifest  in  the 
Spirit.  Therefore  keep  the  day  with  "  solemn 
mirth  "  and  gladness,  rejoicing  in  the  goodness 
of  the  Lord  for  his  unspeakable  gift.  "  For  he 
who  spared  not  his  own  Son  but  delivered  him 
up  for  us  all,  how  shall  he  not  with  him  also 
freely  give  us  all  things  ?" 

And  yet  a  question  may  properly  arise  which 
cannot  but  give  a  very  sober  turn  to  our  thought 
to-day.  Why  should  we  rejoice  in  the  birth  of  a 
child?  Born  in  labor  and  pain,  living  in  joy 
which  is  so  checkered  with  sorrow  that  oftenest 
the  sorrow  is  greater  than  the  joy,  and  going  out 
at  last  in  dreadful,  mysterious  death,  what  is 
man,  that  any  one  should  rejoice  that  another 
human  life  is  begun?  And  in  this  particular 
case  of  which  we  now  speak,  how  little  there  is 
from  the  material  point  of  view,  that  could 
give  occasion  for  joy  to  any  prophetic  soul  who 


43 

could  look  forward  over  the  earthly  life  of  this 
little  child.  The  babe  now  wrapped  in  swad- 
dling clothes  and  lying  in  a  manger  should  be 
despised  and  rejected  of  men,  a  man  of  sorrows 
and  acquainted  with  grief.  His  brief  years  should 
be  spent  in  labor  and  pain,  and,  in  the  full  prom- 
ise of  his  gifted  manhood,  he  should  be  crushed 
to  death  by  an  awful  catastrophe  to  which  no 
touch  of  agony  or  shame  was  wanting.  "The 
overture  of  the  angels  "  was  the  bright  prelude 
to  the  darkest  of  all  earthly  tragedies.  But  in 
that  choral  joy  no  minor  strain  of  sadness  was 
blended  to  prophesy  the  sorrow  which  was  to 
come.  The  star  which  led  the  patient  watchers 
of  the  skies  from  their  far  eastern  home,  shone 
fair  and  bright,  undimmed  by  the  coming  dark- 
ness of  Calvary.  Why,  at  the  beginning  of  this 
sad  career,  was  there  joy  in  the  presence  of  the 
angels,  and  why  did  these  shining  messengers  of 
God  hasten  to  proclaim  this  birth  as  glad  tidings 
of  great  joy  to  the  lowliest  shepherds  of  Bethle- 
hem ?  Why  did  the  heavens  by  their  unwonted 
splendor  declare  the  promise  of  God's  glory, 
when  this  man  was  born  of  woman,  whose  days 
should  be  full  of  labor  and  sorrow?  It  was  only 


44 

because  his  name   should  be  called    Emmanuel 
which  is  by  interpretation,  God  with  us. 

Because  the  incorruptible  Spirit  of  God  dwelt 
in  that  corruptible  clay  and  the  power  of  an  end- 
less life  strengthened  the  weakness  of  that  mortal 
being,  therefore  "  the  morning  stars  sang  together 
and  all  the  sons  of  God  shouted  for  joy."  They 
saw  then,  as  we  see  now,  that  God  was  with  us 
and  that  the  miseries  of  earthly  existence  should 
only  serve  to  manifest  the  glory  of  this  eternal 
life.  Violence,  wrath,  insult,  death,  should  fall 
upon  him,  and  their  blows  should  break  the  ala- 
baster box  and  there  should  flow  forth  ointment 
of  spikenard,  very  precious,  to  fill  the  earth  with 
a  divine  perfume.  We  see  that  this  was  an  occa- 
sion for  unmingled  joy,  for  the  babe  born  in 
Bethlehem  waxed  strong,  and  as  he  met  the  ene- 
mies of  man's  joy  he  destroyed  them  ;  and  over- 
came the  last  enemy,  even  death.  Temptation, 
suffering,  destruction,  at  the  touch  of  his  crea- 
tive Spirit  were  transfigured  and  became  the 
means  of  glory  and  eternal  peace.  Doing  his 
Father's  will,  fulfilling  all  righteousness,  by  the 
things  which  are  seen  and  are  temporal,  he  was 
lifted  to  the  things  which  are  unseen  and  are 


45 

eternal.  The  divine  life  which  thrilled  his  soul 
made  earthly  sorrows  the  stepping-stones  to  im- 
mortal joys.  Because  his  name  was  Emmanuel, 
he  rose  above  these  mortal  griefs  to  the  eternal 
glory  of  the  blessedness  of  God.  Before  that 
infinite  blessedness,  the  pain  of  Gethsemane  and 
Calvary  become  as  nothing;  or  rather  give  to  it 
its  brightest  splendor,  its  most  poignant  joy. 
Shine  on,  undimmed,  O  star  of  Bethlehem,  for 
"the  people  that  sat  in  darkness  have  seen  a 
great  light!"  Shout  aloud  in  your  joy,  ye  multi- 
tude of  the  heavenly  host,  for  "  the  tabernacle  of 
God  is  with  men!"  The  name  of  the  child  is 
called  Emmanuel. 

And  this  same  fact  which  justified  the  rejoi- 
cings over  the  birth  at  Bethlehem,  makes  the  joy 
which  hails  the  birth  of  any  child  reasonable. 
The  world-old  instinct  of  the  human  heart,  which 
compels  it  to  an  unreasoning  joy  when  a  new 
soul  comes  into  being,  has  seemed  to  some  men 
mistaken  and  untrue.  And  looked  at  in  the 
light  of  the  personal  history  of  most  of  the  sons 
of  men  and  with  no  light  from  heaven  to  explain 
its  correspondence  with  the  purpose  and  work  of 
God,  it  is  perfectly  unreasonable.  Most  lives, 


46 

from  a  material  point  of  view,  are  the  merest 
wrecks.  From  the  drift-wood  of  these  wrecks 
the  coming  generations  may  build  homes  for 
themselves,  but  in  the  matter  of  personal  con- 
scious existence,  the  lives  of  men  are  full  of 
labor  and  pain,  prematurely  ended,  or  stretch- 
ing out  their  years  through  slow  decay,  until 
destruction  claims  them  as  its  own.  From  such 
a  point  of  view  no  life  is  really  worth  living  to 
him  who  lives  it.  It  may  serve  some  ends  in  the 
advancement  of  the  race,  but  so  far  as  the 
man  himself  is  concerned,  it  were  better  that  he 
had  not  been.  Therefore  this  instinct  of  the 
race  is  not  only  unreasoning  but  unreasonable. 
The  joy  of  the  mother  in  all  her  pain,  because 
her  child  is  born,  is  a  valuable  mechanical  acci- 
dent, (I  had  almost  said — contrivance)  for  the 
perpetuation  of  the  species  for  some  doubtful 
end,  but  is  not  justified  by  any  philosophical 
view  of  the  circumstances.  But  if,  of  all  the  un- 
numbered millions  of  children  who  have  been 
born,  one  is  rightly  called  Emmanuel,  then  the 
mother's  joy  is  right,  and  we  learn  that  the  sweet 
domestic  instincts  are  true,  the  exponents  of  the 
wise,  loving,  eternal  purpose  of  God.  For  if 


47 

God  be  with  us,  who  can  be  against  us.  The 
swaddling  clothes  and  the  manger,  the  sign  de- 
clared by  the  angel  of  the  Lord,  were  a  sign  not 
only  of  one  who  should  rise  above  the  sorrows 
of  earth  to  the  glory  of  heaven,  but  of  Christ, 
the  Lord,  a  Saviour,  born  unto  us,  who  should 
lift  the  children  of  sorrow  into  the  joy  of  the 
sons  of  God.  Being  joined  to  him  by  faith  we 
rise  above  and  beyond  the  grief  and  misery  of 
earth,  knowing  that  our  citizenship  is  in  heaven, 
where  Christ  is  at  the  right  hand  of  God.  For 
we  have  here  no  continuing  city,  but  we  seek 
one  to  come.  If  for  us  his  name  is  not  Emman- 
uel, then  are  we  wretched  indeed,  but  if  he  really 
is  God  with  us,  the  power  of  his  endless  life  is  in 
us,  and  now  are  we  the  sons  of  God.  Herein  we 
know  that  the  domestic  instincts  are  part  of  the 
impress  of  that  image  in  which  we  were  created, 
and  thrill  in  unison  with  the  pulsations  of  the 
eternal  heart  of  God,  and  that  the  celestial,  un- 
reasoning joy  of  motherhood,  upon  which  none 
but  modern  materialism  has  ever  dared  to  lay  a 
sacrilegious  hand,  is  justified,  because  it  is  in  con- 
sonance with  the  reasonable  hope  that  the  life 
begun  may  come  to  rest  upon  the  child  who  was 


48 

called  Emmanuel,  and  thus  may  rise  above  the 
sins  and  sorrows  and  immaturities  of  earth  into 
the  holy  and  eternal  perfection  of  the  kingdom 
which  is  righteousness  and  peace  and  joy  in  the 
Holy  Ghost.  For  whoso  finds  God  with  him 
shall  prevail  over  temptation,  pain,  and  death, 
and  life's  darkest  tragedy  shall  become  bright 
and  beautiful  as  the  glory  of  the  Lord  shines 
round  about  him. 

My  brethren,  dearly  beloved,  yesterday  morn- 
ing, as  you  have  heard,  just  before  the  light  of  a 
new  day  broke  in  the  east,  my  venerable  and 
honored  father  passed  away  from  earth.  I  should 
not  venture  to  intrude  my  personal  grief  upon 
the  bright  joy  of  your  Christmas  morning,  did  I 
not  know  that  this  loss  of  mine  is  your  loss  also, 
and  that  the  cloud  that  rests  above  my  home  to- 
day, casts  its  shadow  over  many  of  the  homes  of 
this  people.  And  my  thought  goes  out,  and  my 
words  must  lead  your  thought  to  the  stable  of 
Bethlehem,  in  the  ancient  and  storied  East, 
where  a  young  mother  rejoiced  over  her  first- 
born son,  and  to  a  little  cabin  in  the  new  and 
pathless  West,  where  also  a  young  mother  re- 
joiced that  her  first-born  son  was  come  into  the 


49 

world,  now  almost  eighty  years  ago.  If  the  glad- 
ness of  the  one  was  an  echo  of  the  joy  of  God 
and  his  angels,  not  less  truly  so  was  the  gladness 
of  the  other.  For  the  little  child  of  Bethlehem 
took  this  little  child  of  the  wilderness  by  the 
hand,  and  led  him  in  the  way  everlasting.  This 
new  mortal  life  was  touched  by  the  power  of  an 
endless  life  and  became  immortal,  drawing  its 
vital  energy  from  the  source  of  eternal  being. 
And  the  child  grew  and  waxed  strong  in  spirit, 
and  the  grace  of  God  was  upon  him,  for  he 
learned  to  call  his  God,  Emmanuel.  You  mourn 
with  me  to-day,  and  all  the  city  shares  my  grief, 
not  because  of  the  great  natural  powers  and 
faculties  with  which  he  was  endowed,  but  because 
of  the  moral  force  which  sanctified  those  powers 
and  faculties  for  the  help  of  man ;  because  God 
added  to  these  other  gifts  the  unspeakable  gift  of 
his  grace  in  Christ,  which  made  him  great.  O 
the  services  which  he  has  rendered  to  this  com- 
munity as  a  minister  of  righteousness  in  that 
ancient  church  which  is  the  mother  of  us  all ;  as 
a  citizen  who  found  no  political  duty  of  slight 
importance;  as  a  man  whose  immeasurable  love 
was  directed  by  a  clear  common  sense;  who 


5° 

could  never  see  a  wrong  thing  without  earnestly 
laboring  to  set  it  right ;  who  could  never  see  an 
opportunity  of  helping  men  without  seeking  to 
improve  it  to  the  uttermost — of  his  public  ser- 
vices to  this  community  and  to  the  world,  I  do 
not  need  to  speak  to  you  who  have  felt  the  bene- 
ficent influence  of  his  life.  He  rests  from  his 
labors  and  his  works  do  follow  him.  Nor  can  I 
trust  myself  to  speak  of  those  wonderful  traits 
of  character  which  made  him  the  contemporary 
and  the  dear  companion  of  all  his  children,  of 
the  youngest,  no  less  than  of  the  eldest.  For  the 
most  remarkable  side  of  his  remarkable  life  was 
wholly  hidden  from  the  world  and  was  found  in 
the  circle  of  his  domestic  affections,  where  the 
beauty  of  Godlike  holiness  shone  out  upon 
those  whom  God  had  given  him,  and  kept  his  soul 
in  perpetual  youth,  to  sympathize  with  the  work 
and  aims  of  his  children  and  his  children's 
children.  While  every  revelation  of  God  was 
dear  to  him,  perhaps  that  which  was  dearest,  cer- 
tainly that  to  which  he  oftenest  referred  in  his 
home,  was  the  revelation  of  the  God  of  the  family, 
the  covenant  God,  whose  mercy  is  from  everlast- 
ing to  everlasting  upon  them  that  fear  him,  and 


nis  righteousness  unto  children's  children,  to  ^v 
such  as  keep  his  covenant  and  remember  his  com- 
mandments to  do  them.  And  the  promise  of  the 
Lord  standeth  sure.  It  is  enough  for  me  now  to 
say  that  his  greatness  was  of  that  rare  kind 
which  seems  greatest  to  those  who  knew  him 
best.  Few  words  are  fittest;  he  has  fought  a 
good  fight,  he  has  finished  his  course,  he  has  kept 
the  faith,  he  has  received  the  crown.  Nothing  is 
ieft  to  mortal  sight  save  the  earthly  house  of  the 
tabernacle  wherein  he  dwelt,  which  shall  shortly 
be  committed  to  the  ground ;  earth  to  earth, 
ashes  to  ashes,  dust  to  dust.  And  we  shall  see  his 
face  no  more. 

Brethren,  does  my  Christmas  greeting  seem  to 
you  a  sombre,  and  even  a  sorrowful  one?  It  is 
not  so.  The  greeting  may  be  solemn,  but  it  is 
not  sad.  Behind  the  natural  tears  for  my  own 
great  loss,  behind  the  tremor  of  the  voice  of  one 
from  whom  a  great  part  of  the  interest  of  this 
earthly  life  is  gone,  there  is  a  deep,  an  infinite,  a 
triumphant  joy  which  nothing  can  take  from  me. 
For  the  life  now  ended  in  a  peaceful  death  was 
so  complete  and  so  splendid  in  the  grace  of  him 
who  is  called  Emmanuel,  that  it  testifies  to  me 


52 

beyond  a  doubt  that  God  is  with  us.  Living,  he 
lived  unto  the  Lord;  dying,  he  died  unto  the 
Lord;  living  and  dying  he  was  the  Lord's. 

Standing  by  that  beloved  form  in  which  he  had 
tabernacled  for  almost  eighty  years,  in  the  dawn- 
ing light  of  yesterday,  I  knew — I  felt  in  my 
inmost  soul — that  the  clay  upon  which  I  looked 
was  not  he.  Beautiful  as  it  was  with  all  the 
glory  of  gray-haired  age,  I  knew  it  was  but  the 
house  from  which  the  tenant  was  gone,  and  that 
he  was  with  God  in  the  spirit  who  had  been 
with  him  in  the  flesh.  And  in  that  hour  I  knew 
that  I  must  speak  to  you  to-day,  and  must  bri 
to  you  a  Christmas  greeting  of  joy.  And  by  hi; 
complete  and  righteous  life,  the  greeting  comes 
from  him  and  not  from  me.  He  being  dead,  yet 
speaketh,  however  feebly,  through  my  unworthy 
lips.  And  the  message  which  I  bring  to  you 
from  that  cold  form,  upon  this  bright  Christmas- 
day,  is  this :  The  name  of  the  child,  who  was 
born  in  Bethlehem  of  Judea  in  the  days  of 
Herod,  the  King,  is  called  Emmanuel. 

And  I  bring  this  message  from  one  who  found 
God  with  him  here  and  who  has  now  gone  to  be 
with  God  in  glory  everlasting.  By  the  power 


53 

of  the  present  God  he  lived  for  the  help  of  man, 
in  the  faith  of  the  present  God  he  died  to  enter 
into  the  glory  of  the  Lord.  God  was  with  him 
and  God  is  with  us. 

O,  my  brethren,  if  Jesus  is  not  known  to  you 
by  the  name  Emmanuel ;  if  he  seems  only  as  a 
mythic,  or  at  most  an  historic,  figure,  far  removed 
from  our  present  needs  and  distresses,  if  God  is 
to  you  only  a  God  afar  off  and  not  a  God  nigh 
at  hand,  accept  the  testimony  of  the  life  just  ended, 
which  bears  witness,  like  that  of  John,  that  the 
Son  of  Thunder  may  be  the  disciple  whom  Jesus 
loves,  and  who  rests  upon  his  bosom ;  and  learn 
that  the  faith  of  Christ  can  give  an  unmeasured 
moral  power  to  the  feeble  child  of  poverty  and 
want  who  finds  his  portion  in  the  service  of  his 
God.  As  I  stood  by  that  death-bed  and  remem- 
bered the  aspiration  of  the  prophet,  "  Let  me 
die  the  death  of  the  righteous,  and  let  my  last 
end  be  like  his;"  and  the  declaration  of  the  reve- 
lator,  "  Blessed  are  the  dead  that  die  in  the 
Lord  from  henceforth;  yea,  saith  the  Spirit,  that 
they  may  rest  from  their  labors;  and  their  works 
do  follow  them  ;"  and  the  promise  of  God  himself 
concerning  his  faithful  servant,  "  With  long  life 


54 

will  I  satisfy  him  and  show  him  my  salvation;" — 
as  I  remembered  these  things,  I  felt  a  new  inspi- 
ration to  come  to  you  and  wish  and  pray  that 
your  Christmas  might  be  glad  with  the  joy  of 
every  sweet  domestic  affection,  with  every  out- 
pouring of  good  will  to  man  and  glory  to  God 
in  the  highest,  with  every  grace  from  him  whose 
name  is  called  Emmanuel. 

I  must  speak  of  that  of  which  my  heart  is  full. 
May  you  all  find  God  with  you,  as  he  for  whom 
we  mourn  lived  close  to  his  Saviour  and  his 
God,  and  may  you  also,  if  God  so  will,  live  out 
in  peace  the  days  of  man  and  go  from  earth  in 
the  fullness  of  years  as  he  has  gone,  fulfilling  the 
aspiration  of  his  own  evening  hymn  : 

"  How  sweet  to  look  in  thoughtful  hope 

Beyond  this  fading  sky, 
And  hear  him  call  his  children  up 
To  his  fair  home  on  high. 

"  Calmly  the  day  forsakes  our  heaven 

To  dawn  beyond  the  west  ; 
So  may  my  soul  in  life's  last  even 
Retire  to  glorious  rest." 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 

Los  Angeles 
This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


JAN     2  1959 

JAN  2  - 1962 

"EC'O  Mi  o 
OEC 1  5  196) 


Form  L9-100m-9,'52(A3105)444 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY    AC  L  TY 


^SS7sSS?r  Tool  145  664 " 


JAN  9     1Am* 


BV 


